Mamata Banerjee on Bengal violence: "I am not justifying killings"

Kolkata: BJP leaders reached out to Mamata Banerjee over the death of eight people in Birbhum, Bengal. The Chief Minister said, "Such incidents have happened in Gujarat and Rajasthan too", and committed to taking action "fairly". She also announced her intention to visit the area tomorrow.

The mob is believed to have locked eight people in their homes and burned them alive near Rampurhat town of Birbhum in protests after a village leader of the Trinamool Congress was killed in a crude bombing on Monday.

BJP leaders have called for Mamata Banerjee's sacking and a judicial inquiry following the violence and killings.

"Such kinds of incidents have happened in Gujarat and Rajasthan too. I am not justifying the incident in Rampurhat. We will take action in a fair manner," Mamata Banerjee said today.

"The government is ours, we are concerned about people in our state. We would never want anyone to suffer. The Birbhum, Rampurhat incident is unfortunate. I have immediately dismissed the OC, SDPO (officer-in-charge, sub-divisional police officer) of Rampurhat. I will go to Rampurhat tomorrow," added the Chief Minister.

On BJP leaders alleging that they were stopped from visiting the spot, Ms Banerjee said: "This is Bengal, not Uttar Pradesh. I had sent a delegation of Trinamool to Hathras (where a young woman died in 2020 after being gang-raped) but we were not allowed entry. But we are not stopping anyone from coming here."

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has accused the Mamata Banerjee government of allowing the state to slip into chaos and lawlessness in the wake of the Birbhum killings.

Governor described the killings of eight people as "horrific" and said that the state was afflicted with a culture of "violence and lawlessness.".

Angered by his comments, Ms Banerjee called them "inappropriate".

In his three-page response to Ms Banerjee, Mr Dhankhar retaliated, calling his "restrained reaction" an accusatory position.

"As usual, you have taken an accusatory stance at my restrained reaction to grisly carnage worst in the memory at Rampurhat...The shocking carnage is being justifiably compared by many to the incidents in the state, a few years ago, while you were in the opposition," the Governor added.

"Adopting diversionary tactics, you have labelled my reaction as a sweeping and uncalled for statement. In the face of such enormity, I cannot fiddle in Raj Bhavan and be a mute spectator," he wrote.

"There is nothing more absurd than the claim that the state had always been peaceful, barring a few isolated incidents," the Governor wrote to Ms Banerjee, asserting that a "politically-caged investigation" in the state had no credibility.